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#Incarcerated Lives Matter By: llacino Hamilton Bust a feu years ago, the crises of mass incarceration uas largely thought of as an invisible issue. Talked about almost exclusively in abolitionist circles and on prison yards. It is nou part of the mainstream discourse. Publications and groups spanning the political spectrum, even presidential hopefuls in both parties, claim support for reducing the incarceration rate. Still, ue must not be naive. Elite-level alliances, the dominate voice, tap...

1969 Nineteen Sixty Nine was the year that everything in my world changed. This was the year that I lost my innocence, my journey into adulthood, the most transformative year of my life; my trip down the “Rabbit Hole,” so to speak. For me, it was the most important year of my life. I was 16 and very seriously trying to be an adult. It wasn’t working out as well as I wanted it to. I was trying to do too much for my age, education and worldly experience. Innocence, once lost, can never be regai...

--~\lfmli116Jrf*wMim~bttllCrD by Ronald Marshall 0 nly time will reveal whether the 20 14 Legislative Session will mark a sincere effort by Louisiana's lawmakers to reform sentencing laws so that offenders can have a meaningful opportunity to get off the count. At the behest of the Jindal administration, four organizations joined in a collective effort to analyze criminal justice data/ statistics and offer options to assist Louisiana lawmakers in reducing the prison population and correc...

28 Days From Nirvana By George Kayer My condition is so rare, on the North American continent less than 3,400 people are stricken by it. The population of this continent: home to Canada, Mexico and the U.S.A. is estimated at half a billion people . Through government reports, we know it's found in only 36 areas in the United States. The mortality rate is 40% to 93% depending on a state's resources and its government's willingness to aggressively combat this rare condition. Rega...

h i Cja^ 4993 W o r d Essay At the age of sixteen I was incarcerated for First Degree Murder and later sentenced to 77-years in prison. There seemed to be httle consideration of the affects it would have on a teenager to be housed with adults. Fortunately for me I was a fighter. There is a strange unwritten rule in prison that if somebody is willing to stick up for himself from day one then other prisoners will be willing to help him. If you don't stand up for yourself then you are left ...

66 Days Later Frederick Mason USP Tucson #55487-056 PO Box 24550 Tucson, AZ 85734 The date is August 10th, 2016, 66 days after the incident on Memorial Day Weekend, Sunday, June 5th. I've chronicled various times after the incident in which I accused Officer D. Huffstuttler of discriminating against black inmates. I voiced my concern and contempt of the situation that very night, to see if the prison would fairly and honestly address this issue. And it is of great importance that they do...

7My voice through the prison walls By: Inmate Ricky Vincent Pendleton II ^ ^ i O l ^ \j I think rehabilitation is a propaganda word used by the lawmakers to cover their motives exploiting the inmates in a business venture. The whole prison industry is a "for profit" industry; from my reading is a billion dollars industry. How am I supposed to cope in here and seeing the corrupt acts of people...? I have to control the things in my life. Rehabilitation is on the individual prisoner, ...

99 Days Later Frederick Mason #55487—O56 USP Tucson PO Box 24550 Tucson, AZ 85734 The date (as I write this) is September 12th, 33 days after my last essay titled, "66 Days Later". It was an essay on the continual update of what happened on Memorial Day" Weekend of 2016... now 99 days ago. Since then, I've written numerous essays, chronicling the event, to see what USP Tucson would do in light of an accusation of an officer (Huffstuttler) discriminating against inmates. My...

A Book Review of Writing My wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison by Shaka Senghor by Zachary A. Smith I read this book after another prisoner received it as a gift from his mother. The first thing that stood out to me was Shaka Senghor's (aka James White) claim that out of respect for the victims‘ family and their privacy, he changed the name of the man he killed. If Shaka truly wanteﬁ to show respect for the man he killed, wouldn't he have honored it insteaﬁ of...

A Brief Comment on Prison Reform in De-Christianized Society St Thomas More once wrote a letter to console his daughter before his execution. He drew out a lengthy allergy of prison—like nature of life, and God-as- the-executioner, given the fact of certain pain of death. He argues that the degree of restriction while waiting for execution does not change the fact of the punishment at the end. The man in prison has limited physical freedom, but none the less enjoys the same freedom to meet hi...

A Brief Deconstruction of America’s Leviathan INTRODUCTION Recently, I had cause to consider the following two—part question: The goals of criminal punishment include retribution (giving people what they deserve), deterrence (discouraging future crimes), and rehabilitation (improving behavior). What purpose, if any, has your time in prison served? Should any of these purposes be emphasized more? At first, its sophomoric quality invited a dismissive chuckle but a second reading encouraged a mo...

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DEMISE OF THE COLORADO DEPT . OF CORRECTIONS AND POOR DRUG OFFENDER REFORM by: Stephan Darris While incarcerated in the state of Colorado I think it' s fair to say that your past dictates your future . I am not a lifer or a violent offe nder. I am a repeat drug offender that has witnessed some of the most vile atrocity ' s that the system can deliver. I think that most people in this institution live under propaganda, false hope, and make believe promises. It ...

A Colossal Disparity In The Florida Prison System By AKA Kingsta January 16, 2018 I understand I was sentenced to serve time in the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) even though I was wrongfully convicted. However, a prison sentence subjecting me to cruel and unusual punishment and unequal treatment violates both federal and state constitutions and Florida state law. At the very moment I stepped off the large bus (blue bird) at the reception and medical center of Lake Butler Correction...

Part One Do I agree with Freda Adler’s quote that “[ a] crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit”? In the context of our American democracy, Adler’s quote is pretty close to an exact deﬁnition of how an act that is perceived to be wrong is codiﬁed into a body of penal laws.1 An elected body of legislators, i.e. the “group in power”, determines what public wrongs should be deemed wrong enough to be labeled a crime and, as such, carry along with them punitive measures. When A...

"A Criminal End" By: Mr. Tracy "Hollywood" Glenn March 25th 2D1h Prison has a way of sometimes helping one find another path, one that is seemingly reachable that one could not see beforehand from the offense that has one there locked away. If I were to tell you this correspondence is being written by one man who has at 50 years of age no high school diploma or B.E.D. could you believe it? Prison for me today is demoralizing and it has no place in my efforts to fulfill in ...

A DA I If THE SHU X awake this morning to my pitiful predicament, The instant my' eyes popped open T shuddered from, the re the center of the middle I was able to touch about eight by five, five feet wide and eight feet long. A cement box smaller than the size of a. home bath room, the cement wa11s, floors, and cei1ing remain clod as ice, as does the steel bars and steel mesh that front the chamber. Imagine that your home bath tub is a bed. what you might visualize tris living in a bath ...

A DAY IN MY LIFE Awakened by the brilliance of 6:00AM lights, I arise, grab my toiletries and walk down the long, stale white corridor toward the restroom. First, I must wade through a bevy of inmates blocking my path while vehemently discussing lat night's televised basketball game. These men do so without any consideration for those still trying to sleep or pass through. I step across the threshold and into a room with two rows of sinks where all sorts of men — white, black, Mexican, t...

D. Marquise Adams Legal Aide Kentucky State Penitentiary 10 January 2015 A Descent into Wrongful Convictions Any professional whether in law, having a PHD, or the common layman has knowledge that the prison population is growing rapidly. Even greater is the amount of Americans that realize the spike in cases where convictions are based on faulty DNA evidence. Yes, the Nation is a World Leader in many things and incarceration tops the list, which are mostly due to wrongful convictions. I predi...

Saints Inside: A Failed Intervention? More Next Blog» Create Blog Sign In SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2016 A Failed Iriterventieri? "History teaches us that men and nations behave Wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives." ‘- — Abba Eban Here's a story I've been wanting to tell for a while now but just figured people wouldn't believe it — — either that or they would think I was nuts. But I'm beyond caring about that anymore and I believe it really is somet...

"A GAY MAN IN PRISON" First of all, I want to start off by letting you know something about my- self. I am a gay male serving time in federal prison, I will be here until the date of March 17, 2019, unless the laws change and I get some relief, or if I get clemency form the President of the United States. Since I do not see the later two items happening in a way that will benefit me, then I am counting on the March 2019 date. Life in a federal prison for a gay man is not as good as ...

A HEARTFELT THANK-YOU I am an inmate presently housed at the Medium Security ECI-East Prison in Westover, Maryland. It is the largest prison in the state however, being located on the Eastern Shore it often feels like being in another country. I have been incarcerated for 30 years and in that time I have seen the health care providers go from very good to very bad, to what it is now “Mediocre”. As you can guess just about any inmate can give you some horror stories about the medical care in p...